A Pushcart at the Curb

A Pushcart at the Curb

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2
(1 Review)
A Pushcart at the Curb by John Dos Passos

Published:

1922

Downloads:

833

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A Pushcart at the Curb

By

2
(1 Review)

Book Excerpt

very metal jars
schoolboys with their packs of books
clerks in stiff white collars
old men in cloaks
try to regiment their feet
to the glittering brass beat.
Run run run to see the soldiers.

_Puerta del Sol_

XIV

Night of clouds
terror of their flight across the moon.
Over the long still plains
blows a wind out of the north;
a laden wind out of the north
rattles the leaves of the liveoaks
menacingly and loud.

Black as old blood on the cold plain
close throngs spread to beyond lead horizons
swaying shrouded crowds
and their rustle in the knife-keen wind
is like the dry death-rattle of the winter grass.

(Like mouldered shrouds the clouds fall
from the crumbling skull of the dead moon.)

Huge, of grinning brass
steaming with fresh stains
their God
gapes with smudged expectant gums
above the plain.

Flicker through the flames of the wide maw
rigid square bodie

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A short but often very sad book of poems. Pasos was a novelist and poet best known for his Manhattan Transfer which became a best seller. He was a communist early in life and also enlisted in the communist army in Spain to battle Franco. Later in life he reversed his politics and endorsed Barry Goldwater for President. Pasos is credited with having coined the famous phrase \"If you are not a leftist at 20 you may not have a heart, If you are not a rightist at 40 you may not have a brain\". This short book of poems did not speak to me because in it Dos Pasos appears to be a sad and disappointed man. In life he never turned away from society or lost hope in the future. There is little joy here and that is unfortunate.

Perhaps I have missed the point of the book however I found it amongst the least of his works